


Someone to Lose

by arthurmorgan-s-heart (Silverblind)



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Other, gender neutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 23:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverblind/pseuds/arthurmorgan-s-heart
Summary: Jobs can go wrong, and you know too well that everything you know and everyone you love can be ripped from you at any moment.





	Someone to Lose

**Author's Note:**

> This is a request fill from my tumblr blog. Uploaded here for convenience - find me on tumblr - arthurmorgan-s-heart
> 
> Original request text: "Can I request Arthur and reader having just escaped from a job that went wrong and the reader gets scared of losing Arthur if something went wrong again please?"
> 
> Finally managed to write something after a couple weeks' break, hope it's still readable ✌✌

Everything had gone without a hitch - _at first_.

The bank’s safes had been full to bursting, the customers and employees had put up little resistance, and the law’d been nowhere in sight - an easy, well-executed job. All that was left to do was get away.

You can’t pinpoint the exact moment things had started to go wrong - was it when Arthur and Charles had taken a few moments more than they should have to make sure all the safes were empty? Had Bill shouted too loudly as he held the staff and customers at gunpoint? Or perhaps it had been Lenny, when he’d lingered in the bank for half a moment before following you?

There’s no way to be sure, and you suppose it hardly matters now.

Jobs could go wrong - they often did. It was the way of things - the way of the life you led. You’d lost count of how many towns you and the gang you’d grown to call family had been run out of to the sounds of gunshots and curses.

But now, as you ride away from the bank with empty hands and what seems to be half the lawmen in New Hanover hot on your heels, you feel true fear for the first time: the fear that this might be the end of you. The fear that you might lose everything; _everyone_.

Despite the panicked beating of your heart, you turn around in your saddle, firing blindly at your pursuers, hearing the others around you do the same do the same - though Arthur’s aim, as always, seems to be the most accurate and the deadliest out of all of you. Pained shouts ring out behind you as his bullets find their marks, though they do little to stem the seemingly endless flow of lawmen riding after you.

Arthur looks at you when he turns back around in his saddle to reload his repeater, his gaze lingering on you for barely half a second before it lowers to the gun in his hands, though it’s enough for you to see the fire that burns deep behind the infinite blue of his eyes - eyes that had grown dark with adrenaline and a rage that could only be seen in men fighting for their lives. You’d seen that flame before, many times; it always came when Arthur found himself in the middle of a firefight, making him come alive, making him into what he needed to be to get out of whatever seemingly desperate situation he found himself in.

That fire had kept him alive where other men would have died, you know that - and yet you can’t help but fear that, one day, it would lead him to his doom, as well. You shake the thought from your mind as soon as it comes, a bullet whizzing dangerously close to your ear. Now is hardly the time to entertain such thoughts. You know you have to focus on getting the lot of you out of this - _alive_.

The green expanse of the Heartlands unfurls itself before you, wild and magnificent and desperately _open_ , offering no place to hide - you had to hope you could simply lose them. You veer off the road suddenly, and hear the others do the same, following you into the hills.

“Looks like they startin’ to let up!” Lenny shouts as you push the horses up a steep, rocky slope. You can barely hear him over the thundering of hooves and gunshots.

“Alright, c’mon!” Arthur roars, holstering his repeater before drawing his pistol. “We gotta - “

A shot rings out, seemingly louder than the others in the already deafening cacophony of gunfire, and Arthur’s breath suddenly seems to leave him, cutting him off mid-sentence. You turn your head as your horse reaches the top of the hill, and see red - _blood_. It’s streaming from his upper arm in a crimson wave that quickly turns the sleeve of his shirt from a pale blue to a deep, angry red, and cold dread washes over you at the sight. He’s dropped his pistol, the weapon tumbling back down the hill, forgotten.

“Arthur!” Lenny calls out, eyes widening. Your own blood is pounding in your ears, and you feel as if you can’t breathe, but you keep riding - there is little else you can do, though you do turn around to fire your revolver at the last few lawmen struggling up the slope after you. You’re not sure how many bullets you waste as you fire at them wildly, seemingly half-blind with tears and panic, but when you finally stop, there is no sign of them.

“Shit,” you hear Arthur hiss under his breath, the hand of his wounded arm holding on to the reins while he presses against the wound with the other. He looks up to see you looking at him as you bring your horse next to his. Your worry is plain to see, you know it - you’re not trying to hide it. He attempts a comforting smile at the sight, though it looks more like a pained grimace than anything. “I’m alright,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. There is a strain to his voice that he can’t quite hide, even as he takes the lead, guiding you back down the other side of the hill. “We’re almost outta this - can’t stop now.”

The thought occurs to you to protest - but you know Arthur’s right. So you follow him in silence, riding with the others for a few more minutes until he stops in the hollow of a hill, under a small cliff, hidden from sight. He’s pale already, and blood is dripping off his forearm and down unto his horse’s coat, rolling down its shoulder in fat red trails - and though he hardly seems to care, you feel almost sick at the sight. What if he bleeds out, right in front of you? What if he loses his arm? What if -

“Alright. Split up,” he starts before your thoughts can drag you even further into the dark abyss of your panic. He seems to struggle to keep his breathing even, and you trade looks with the others - they are as concerned as you. Even Bill seems to have momentarily forgotten about the money you’d had to leave behind, his eyes trained on the red staining Arthur’s clothes. “Go back to camp. Hope I don’t need to tell you not to get followed.”

“Arthur, your arm - “ Charles starts.

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur shoots back gruffly. “Don’t need no - “

“God’s sake, Morgan,” Bill snaps. “You’re bleedin’ all over the goddamn place. Bad enough we lost the money - “

“Wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t - “ Arthur starts, pain and irritation plain in his voice, though you climb off your horse before he can say any more, stepping between them.

“I’ll take care of him,” you say, moving closer to Arthur to take his horse’s reins from him. He resists for half a second before letting go. “Y’all go back to camp. We’ll be okay.”

Bill huffs out an annoyed breath, turning Brown Jack around brusquely before riding away without a word. Lenny opens his mouth to speak, but Charles reaches out to place a hand on his shoulder, and he stays silent, simply offering an encouraging, tight-lipped smile before following Bill.

“You sure you’re okay?” Charles asks, meeting your eyes. You smile, as confidently as you can manage - you’re sure he sees right through you, to where all your panic and fear and worry are boiling into an uncontrollable ball of fire that might burst out of you at any moment, though he waits for your answer all the same.

“Yeah,” you say, and the steadiness of your voice surprises even yourself. “It’s alright.”

He looks at you for a few more seconds before shifting his gaze to Arthur, and apparently deciding you can manage on your own; he turns away with a silent nod before spurring Taima into a gallop and disappearing after the others.

“Alright,” you say as you turn back to Arthur, choking back the tears you feel burning the back of your throat as you look at his blood-soaked shirt. “Come on. Get down.”

With the others gone, he relents without protest, muffling pained groans as he climbs off his horse before allowing you to guide him to a nearby boulder. He sits on the ground with a laboured sigh, the last of the strength that had been holding him upward seemingly leaving him as he leans back against the rock bonelessly and closes his eyes. His hand is still clutched tightly over his wound, and the bleeding seems to have stopped - that’s good, at least, you can’t help but tell yourself.

Your hands shake slightly as you rifle through both of your saddlebags for supplies - a bottle of whiskey, a needle and thread, and an old shirt you can rip into strips for makeshift bandages until you can get him to camp. You find one at the bottom of his saddlebag, crumpled and apparently forgotten, but reasonably clean. It would do.

“My shirt,” you hear him mumble when you kneel on the ground next to him, looking up to see him staring down at the cloth in your hands with half-lidded eyes, veiled by exhaustion. “You gave me that shirt.”

You remember. He’d met you in town with a gash in his shirt from an unfortunate encounter with an unusually belligerent buck, and you’d bought him another one - as a gift, and as a thank you, for making you laugh harder than you had in years.

But now, instead of bringing a smile to your face, as it usually does, the memory brings bitter tears to your eyes.

“Yeah. I did,” you reply simply, not daring to say any more lest your words turn into sobs, blinking away the tears that had welled in your eyes.

You try and ignore the sound of his laboured breaths as you unsheathe your knife and go about slicing the shirt into makeshift bandages - for a long time, the only sounds to be heard between you, aside from the wind rustling the grass and the birds flying overhead, is the ripping of cloth and Arthur’s heavy breathing. You feel his eyes on you, but you refuse to look at him, focusing on your shaking hands and the dangerously sharp edge of your knife as you slice and rip and tear the shirt - and seemingly all the good memories associated with it - into tatters.

Only when the garment is nothing more than an unnameable pile of cloth on the ground in front of you do you meet his eye, looking up slowly, almost cautiously, and finding him looking at you with the same expression he had before - exhaustion, and gratitude, and concern.

“You alright, darlin’?” he asks finally, even as you reach up, one hand still holding your knife as you start to cut away the blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt - it’s ruined anyway. He doesn’t protest.

“No,” you answer simply, truthfully. He must have expected your answer, yet he still seems taken aback, and he shifts under your touch, bringing the edge of the knife dangerously close to his skin. You give him a reproachful look.

“Ain’t the first time we been shot at,” he says. He hisses in pain as you peel the cloth away, revealing the wound; just a graze. Shallow, and clean. You can’t help a quiet sigh of relief. “Ain’t gonna be the last.”

“I know,” you reply. You don’t dare meet his eyes as you uncork the bottle of whiskey. “I just…”

You take a shuddering breath, squeezing your eyes shut for a moment before opening them again to look at him - every worried line of his face, the melancholy curve of his mouth. He was always so concerned about you, even in a moment such as this.

“Don’t wanna be without you,” is all you say before you lean forward, selfishly not allowing him time to respond before you tip the bottle over the wound, letting the alcohol trickle down over the damaged skin. He gives a pained, surprised gasp, one hand shooting up to grab at your wrist, fingers curling around your forearm loosely while the other tightens into a fist at his side, long groans of pain clawing their way from his throat.

“Lil’ warnin’ next time?” he pants when you’re done, and guilt flashes through you - though when you look up at him, he manages a small smile.

“Sorry,” you say as you inspect the wound. “Ain’t gonna need no stitches,” you add after a few moments of silence.

“Good.” You feel him watching you as you pick up the strips you’d made out of his shirt. He allows a few moments to trickle by in silence before he speaks again. “Y’ain’t never gonna be without me, darlin’.” He says quietly. You meet his gaze - soft, caring, honest, sincere. “Never.”

You bark out a laugh - dry and humourless. You wish you could believe him wholeheartedly - but a part of you know that he could be ripped from you at any moment by this life that you lead, and you from him.

“Don’t know that,” you whisper as you start bandaging his wound. Your fingers are still shaking. “It’s what we are. The life we got. Can’t know what’ll happen on the next job, or the one after that, or the one after that.” You hear our voice become thick with tears again, your breath catching as you fight back the sob that wants to tear itself out of your throat. “I wish things could be different,” you add in a whisper, barely more than a breath.

You’d wished it many times, had even allowed yourself to imagine what that different life might be like - a small ranch, a few horses, a dog or two or three. But that’s all it was: a dream. And you know it.

You’re so consumed by your own thoughts and the work of your hands that you don’t notice him reaching for you until you feel the rough pads of his fingers against your cheek, and you look at him.

“Soon,” he says, with a small smile. “Dutch’ll get us outta here, and we’ll be together, and things’ll be different. Dutch always gets us through. You’ll see.”

You give him a smile of your own, and you hope he doesn’t notice how forced it must look. There is something inside you that whispers that something has changed; and though you’re not sure exactly what it is exactly - it feels almost as if the world itself has shifted, just enough for fate to become crueler than it already is - , you know that it might very well lead to the end of everything you’ve ever held dear.

But for now you smile, and try to believe that you might have a future with the man you love.


End file.
